Joshua Wong Gets 10 More Years in Hong Kong Security Case

Photo: Chris Lau, CNN

Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong has been sentenced to 10 more years in prison, a punishment that could keep him behind bars until he is 40. The High Court handed down the sentence on Thursday for conspiring to collude with foreign forces, a national security offence. Wong, who turned 30 last month, has already spent six years in custody, and he had been due for release in January.

Wong was once the teenage face of Hong Kong's democracy movement. He rose to prominence at 15, leading school sit-ins in 2012 that overturned a plan to bring Chinese civic education into the city's schools, and he went on to lead the Umbrella Movement protests of 2014, when thousands of mostly young people blocked major roads for 79 days demanding greater democracy. On Thursday morning, police tightened security outside the court near Hong Kong's financial district, where dozens of people had camped out, some for two nights, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the city's most famous prisoners.

The case turned on events in 2020. Prosecutors said Wong conspired with self-exiled activist Nathan Law and others between 1 July and 23 November 2020 to ask foreign countries and bodies to impose sanctions or blockades, or to take other hostile action against the governments of Hong Kong and China. The lobbying, they said, ran through social media and meetings with United States politicians, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then Senator Marco Rubio, now the US secretary of state, and it continued after Beijing imposed the National Security Law on the city that year. Wong pleaded guilty in September.

Judge William Tam called the case grave. He set a starting point of 13 years and cut it to 10 to reflect the guilty plea, as Reuters reported. "Whilst it is a very heavy sentence on the defendant, the punishment must fit the gravity of the crime committed," he said, adding that the court also needed to express the community's abhorrence at Wong's actions. Only about two months of the new term will run alongside the sentence Wong is already serving, so in practice it adds nearly a decade to his time inside.

Wong is already serving four years and eight months after pleading guilty in the landmark 2024 subversion trial of 47 opposition figures, the largest prosecution of pro-democracy activists under the security law. He has been in custody since November 2020, when he was 23. Human Rights Watch said the new sentence means he faces imprisonment until late 2036, when he will be 40.

In a mitigation letter seen by CNN, Wong wrote that his activism "was never driven by hatred". He said he had spent his spare time in prison studying law and keeping up with new technology, including artificial intelligence. "Yet none of my aspirations for the future is more important than my solemn wish to care for my ageing parents once I complete my sentence," he wrote. When he was led into court on Thursday, wearing a navy shirt and his usual black-framed glasses, he nodded to supporters in the public gallery.

Outside, the feelings ran raw. Activist Lui Yuk-lin held a card bearing Wong's name as she entered the building. "He's a child in my heart," she said. Another supporter, housewife ET Wong, said she had followed his campaigning since he was an adolescent. "He chose a difficult path for the future, human rights and student movements of Hong Kong," she said. "He should not have been in jail for one single day."

The Hong Kong government has dismissed international criticism of the prosecution. "The lawful exercise of free speech must not be conflated with taking actions to collude with a foreign country to impose 'sanctions' to harm one's own country," a spokesperson said in September. Beijing imposed the security law after huge and often violent pro-democracy protests shook the city in 2019, and both governments say it restored stability. Rights groups say it has stifled dissent, shut independent outlets and driven most pro-democracy figures into jail or exile, as CNN reported.

What this means in plain terms: a man who entered prison at 23 for organising protests will now, on the current sentence, spend his whole thirties there too. The case also draws a hard line that will shape every other activist still facing charges under the security law, because a guilty plea and a decade of custody behind him still brought 10 more years.

PakInsight Hub has followed other major court and rights cases this week, including the Russian strike on a Ukraine aid centre, the Gaza children left without limbs and the diplomat expulsions between Ethiopia and Sudan.

Sources

• Reuters: Hong Kong court sentences activist Joshua Wong to 10 years on national security charge
• CNN: Hong Kong democracy campaigner Joshua Wong handed another 10 years in jail
• Human Rights Watch: Hong Kong: Joshua Wong gets nearly 10 more years in prison

What happens next: Wong's lawyers will weigh an appeal against the sentence, while rights groups press governments abroad to raise his case.

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